Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Perseverance...eventually!

I pulled this runner out 2 or 3 weeks ago and the handquilting thread. Moved it around the house a few times, from side table in the living room, to kitchen table, to sewing room, out to the lanai for a few hours with good intentions, and back to the living room.  Avoidance extraordinaire. . .


I designed this myself, based on another runner with similar borders: a zinger and then a final focus fabric border.  Mine, however, is completely different within the runner.  Once this is completely finished, (and it will be!  I have a plan!) I will write about the centre.

For now, suffice it to say, that I am enjoying the hand-quilting I've done this evening!  I am quite surprised that I now feel that way, because when I threaded (finally) that teensy tiny quilting "between" needle, I was feeling steam building up between my ears.  Stitching he first red triangle was less than enjoyable.  In fact, I put it down, walked away to make supper and told myself who cared if I finished this off with machine quilting?  Were there quilt police who would come and take me or it away?  Judge me?  No!  So I'd kind of settled on that thought, knowing that I could probably finished the damn thing tonight, maybe even bind it too.

But something made me give it another try after supper.  I took off one of the bar clamps on the frame I'm using so I had more give to the fabric and could manipulate it a bit more to get a better rocking stitch needed to produce tiny even stitches.  I got my frame years ago, so I don't see my size (9.5 X 11") on Amazon or JoAnn, but the Q-Snap is exactly what mine is.

Well, suddenly it clicked.  The fabric felt right, the thimble was almost not noticeable (it actually never did bother me, so I highly recommend this kind), my quilting rocking stitch rocked, and I could see progress!

I've told myself I will quilt 4 red triangles per day until they are done, and then I will finish quilting the red border the next day.  I know what I will do with the larger cream squares to finish them up as well as I've decided on a border pattern, nothing fancy.

And I am enjoying this!  Now, I have one more red triangle for today's quota, so off I go!

Note:  Because I know my sister, Linda, will notice, the white condom-looking thingie on the left side of the picture is the thumb out of a pair of latex gloves like the dentist wears.  I use it to grab the needle to make pulling it through a snap.

1 comment:

  1. Ummm, eeeeeeew??!!!
    I also notice you're using your new basket for your quilting trinkets!

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